


with the daisies

by charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, May/December Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25942006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmtion/pseuds/charmtion
Summary: ‘It consumes her: this heat, this hunger for him. It always has. It always will. She cannot see shapes or shades when she is with him; the world is blurred at its edges, things lose their sharpness. But his fingertips skate her skin like pinpricks, and the lines of his face are strong and clean. Everything fades around them — everything except them.’A reunion between lovers, featuring silver fox Jon.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 50
Kudos: 164
Collections: summer rain





	with the daisies

**Author's Note:**

> > title taken from 13 beaches by lana del rey. 🌴

She comes back after Christmas — a brief spell in the snow-draped comfort of home — and is met at the airport. It’s nearing ninety out, but his skin is dry, his hair smooth; not a strand out of place, not a single bead of sweat in sight.

His fingers brush the inside of her wrist as he takes the suitcase from her. The breath turns staticky in her throat, crackles gently in the hollow of it. She tamps the feeling down, swallows it as she meets the look he is turning on her.

‘Good?’ he says.

 _Your time away_ , he means. She thinks on it before she nods, agrees. The pine trees, the presents bound in crackly cellophane — the secret little square one folded up in tissue-paper, almost navy in colour, the faintest hint of his aftershave clinging to it. He tracks the bob of her head with his easy gaze; she drowns in it. _Being back_ , he means. _Seeing me_.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘All good.’

A chill sweep of A.C. snatches handholds on her skin, prises at her jawbone like it aches to catch a rattle off her teeth. She presses her lips together, feels the tacky stick of balm half-dried on them. Honeysuckle, beeswax; colourless, clear. She follows the strong shape of him out through the exit of the airport.

He doesn’t ask her where she wants to be dropped off. The car slips along the freeway, then skips and dips along the roads of the rich. Quiet, hillocky: a thousand miles away from her shabby, sun-kissed studio on the other side of town. She puts her forehead to the glass, taps an idle tune with her fingertips against the sleek black interior.

They don’t speak. She starts to hum, softly.

His house sits angular amongst the sloping lines of the hills. A polished white block, all natural woods and washed-out stone. Windows that hold the stars, catch the faintest glimmer of city lights.

The dogs are roaming the driveway as they pull in.

‘He missed you.’

 _Ghost_ , he means. Of course.

‘I missed him,’ she says. ‘A lot.’

Late sunlight catches at the tall trees that line the driveway. She tilts her eyes to follow it: this haze that her days here pass beneath. A moon-glint somewhere amongst the heat and the spotlights, the palm trees and shady corners. Him.

The engine purrs to quiet.

‘Right,’ he says briskly. ‘I’ve got some calls to make. Then we’ll have dinner.’

‘Okay.’

She wants a cigarette. She wants the edges of his body — the knife of it slotting back into her centre, where it belongs. Quietly, she touches the back of his hand where it rests still on the leather steering-wheel. Allows herself a little rasp across his knuckles, then she pulls away from him, slips out of the car.

Inside the house, she looks into the bathroom mirror as the shower runs behind her. The sunglasses she removes have left a reddish dent across the bridge of her nose. She washes her hair, comes out of the steam in a haze of cherries, wildflowers with dark-tipped petals.

Looks into the mirror again as she binds her hair up into a towel. Runs a fingertip the apple of her cheek. Thinks of her body as bits of fruit artlessly arranged, gathered together ready for the dip of his lips, his bite to land on their silky globes, sticky centres — all the parts of her pored over by cold lenses, dying for a little warmth.

She puts on a dress: the one he likes, but will never ask her to wear. Her face is bare of makeup, her hair stirring shower-damp ends against her shoulders as she carefully untwines the towel.

At the windows, raindrops begin to patter softly.

She should phone home, her mother. Let them know she has arrived back safely, that she forgot to turn off the fairy-lights woven around the slats of her childhood bed. But she doesn’t call, she can’t call — she is here, and all she can think of is him.

The buzz of his body carries through the shadowy house like electricity, like lightning, the belly of a storm. His voice, the faint clatter of fingertips on laptop-keys. Her mouth is watering; the chilled wine she takes from the fridge does not sate the thirst pricking claws across her tongue, treading needles down her throat.

Margaery thinks it fabulous, takes a salacious interest in it. Lifted eyebrows over the salt-sugared rims of brunchtime mimosas. A coy smile about _that_ mark brushed against by earrings dangling like windchimes in the sunshine. The silver chain lapping at a slightly lower bite, the moonstone pendant, the subtle glint of a diamond: elegant, expensive.

‘A sugar baby,’ she said once as they smiled, sipped. ‘Never thought I’d see the day, darling.’

‘It isn’t like that.’

And it’s not. The necklace was a gift, the rest — the rent, the bills, the plane tickets between home and here — they are all her own to pay. She would not have it any other way.

Her sundress is lemon-coloured. Soon, the rain renders it almost transparent; the dark moon of a nipple peeking through the fronds of hair tossed over her left shoulder. Idly, she puts her finger to it, her thumb — pinches. It doesn’t dull the ache. It only stokes it.

‘Getting wet?’

Her lips part. ‘Yes.’

‘Come inside, then.’

‘I like it out here.’

There are soft pink petals playing with the daisies beneath her bare feet. She shifts on her soles, feels a stirring of heat deep between her hipbones as her thighs brush together minutely. Turns to rest her chin to the bloom of her shoulder. She does not look at him, only holds her pose as the moon mixes with the raindrops, turns them to spotlights.

‘Done with your work?’

‘Not even close.’

‘Mm,’ she hums. ‘I am.’

‘I know.’

Quiet treads slowly as orange blossom dapples the darkening air. She breathes it in, tips her face to the rain. His voice, softer now.

‘Inside,’ he says. ‘Please, Sansa.’

The table is set, laid for two. A candle flickers dreamily between the plates, the placemats made from polished slate. Silver crockery smooth, pretty as the earrings drifting feathers from her lobes. Her wine glass — half-empty, abandoned by the doorway to the gardens — has been retrieved, refilled. She takes a sip as she slips into her seat.

His phone buzzes constantly as they eat, an angered wasp trapped in a glass. Set to silent, as if such a thing exists out here in these starry hills.

‘You can answer it,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘I made dinner for two, not— ’ he hooks the phone from his pocket, glances quickly at the flare of the screen ‘ —twenty-sev- _eight_ , and counting.’

There it is: that little gleam of humour in his voice, his gaze. He puts the phone back into his pocket. She looks at him through the candleflame. Her dress is still a little damp; it clings to the creases of her body as she crosses her legs, sweeps a glance at her plate.

‘Did you like your gift?’

Her eyes flicker from the plate to his face: easy, serene. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you use it?’

Warmth spreads inside her like frost catching at window-glass. ‘What do you think, Jon?’

‘Eat your food.’

 _Swallow_ , he means. _Like a good girl_.

Carefully, she puts her fork down onto the half-cleared plate. Then her knife. She leans her palms onto the table, lifts to her feet as she arches across the polished slate placemats, blows out the candle flickering dreamily between them. An acrid string of black smoke twists up into the air. His eyes glitter dangerously.

‘I’m full,’ she says.

‘Are you?’

‘Mm. No.’

The burnt, bitter flare of the candle spreads, and she is dizzy on the fumes of it. The thickness. Cigarette smoke somewhere, ashes in a crystal cup. His body, hard and clean as a knife in the confines of his well-cut suit; the touch of silver at his temples. His fingers. Callouses, a scar cracked across his knuckles. His thumb: rough and smooth as fine, aged whiskey. It slips into her mouth now.

She sucks reflexively, obediently.

When he pulls it free — a wet, needy sigh — she looks at him with eyes half-closed and heady. Opens her mouth for more.

‘Greedy,’ he says mildly.

Her tongue wicks over her teeth. ‘Been a while.’

‘I know how long it’s been, baby.’

Her throat aches, but the smile she gifts him is slow, indifferent. ‘Too long?’

‘Long enough,’ he murmurs. ‘Bedroom. Now.’

She shakes her head as she reaches back to get a grip on her dress, then pulls at it till the hem slides smoothly up over her hips. He looks to where her elbows are planted between plates, placemats, the wax-dripped candleholder. His chair makes a jagged, grating sound as it is pushed back across the hardstone floor.

He stands behind her. His hand finds a home at the hollow of her back. Her spine dips away from the weight of it, even as her skin sings against its warmth. A little bite of pressure, a little hint of strength. The weight of the world is in his fingertips; sometimes she aches for him to lay it all onto her, make her small beneath it.

‘You’re soaked,’ he says as his thumb finds a fold of her dress, plays with it casually. ‘How long were you out there?’

‘Long enough.’

He rewards her husky words with a bright, little laugh that bursts between her ribs like white sunshine. Then his lips are at her throat, his hand finding the heat of her: wet and silky as her sodden sundress.

It happens quickly after that.

He tells her not to come, growls it in her ear — but she is too far gone, and the stubborn streak in her turns selfish. Her name is an admonishment low in his throat; he is a god inside her, the sound she makes soaring as a prayer.

A hand at the hollow of her back again, bearing down as he pulls away, out: his cock a slick drag across the inside of her thigh. She moves her hips, tries to follow him, beckon him back; but he steels her with his fingertips, holds her steady, lets her flutter — squeeze, pulse — down on nothing. Her climax slips from her gently, so gently she wants to scream.

She doesn’t scream. She pushes back till his body shifts from the lines of her own, then tears herself away from him. The dress swells against the damp pleats it has made above her hips, swishes back down to brush just above her knees as she stalks from the kitchen on soundless feet.

He doesn’t follow.

She doesn’t want him to.

In the bathroom next to his bedroom, she finds her things unpacked. Carefully placed, label-out. The sum of her existence, her impact here. A bottle of facewash, a bar of lavender-scented soap. Is that it? Is that all?

Or is there more to these mundane objects, the simple act of him placing them — carefully, purposefully — here in a room all his own?

Her toothbrush in the cup, nestled close to his. A slip of silk on the back of the chair in the bedroom showing through the half-open door. On his bedside table, the paperback she finished in an afternoon — that afternoon he worked tirelessly a few feet from her. That afternoon that bled and blurred into an evening hazy at its edges, all sex and sweet words and the sting of a bite on her shoulder.

An evening like the one she is living, breathing now.

Cotton clings to skin dampened with rain, sweat. She feels the skirt slip silkily over her calves, steps out of it, then folds the discarded dress up neatly. Bare, she walks back into the bedroom. Her handbag is buzzing on the bed; she dips her hand inside the mauve leather, fumbles for her phone.

It’s late by the time she clicks off her final call. Agent placated, shoots confirmed. Her mother sending a thumbs-up in reply to a message about the forgotten fairy-lights. Something from Margaery. Thinks of their last brunch together: the haze of midmorning sunshine, the scent of jasmine turning with tides of traffic on the soft air.

A sugar baby. She is nothing so sweet as that. Ponders what she is as she finds a tee-shirt from his closet, pulls it over her head. Something a little tart, a little bitter at its edges. Jaded. Fresh, clean. Lemony: the first bite into a grapefruit. A fleece, too — the one he wears when they walk in the woods with the dogs at their heels. She slides her arms into it, zips it up. Woodsmoke flushes the scent of citrus from her mind now.

In the garden, moon-struck, with the daisies at his feet spilling around him like strewn diamonds, stars. He has a hand cupped close to his face, a cigarette between his fingers. He offers it to her as she steps up to his side; they look out over the hills as the grey smoke of her exhale tumbles from her nostrils.

‘Thank you for putting my stuff away.’

He lifts the cigarette to his lips. ‘Good to have some clutter back.’

‘Cheapening your bathroom up,’ she says. ‘Sorry about that.’ 

‘My poor Roja bottles must feel like they’re slumming it.’

‘I think they’re pretty used to it. By now.’

She leans her head against his shoulder as they stand, laugh together. Closes her eyes, puts her face into the fabric of his shirt. Her arm curls around his waist, fingers making a fist between his shoulder-blades.

‘I missed you,’ she says. ‘A lot.’

‘I know,’ he murmurs. ‘I missed you, too.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

Means it to come out jokily, snip a little bitingly at the air. But it simmers there where she speaks it into his shoulder, softly — almost sadly.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I know I can be… difficult.’

‘Distant,’ she corrects. ‘Never difficult.’

A little laugh-groan rumbles against her cheek. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘Am I?’

‘No.’ He puts his hand to her hair, taps his thumb against the curve of her skull. ‘You’re fucking fierce.’

‘Have to be,’ she says. ‘City like this. The job I do. The hearts I break.’

‘Lovely, too.’ His lips are at her ear suddenly. ‘Just a little bit lovely.’

She lifts her face from his shoulder, tips it up to the skies. His kiss lands like a raindrop on her lips. When he pulls away, they are both smiling. His thumb touches the tip of her nose, then slides along her cheekbone. She licks her lips, drags her eyes away from his mouth.

‘Take me to bed,’ she says — and he does.

Her knees brush the mattress as he reaches an arm around her, finds the zip of the fleece with his fingers. Pulls it down in one long, slow glide. Buries his face into the crook of her throat to find her in his softest, oldest tee-shirt. She leans forward a little, puts her arms up till he slides the shirt off her body, bears her face-down onto the bed with the gentlest pressure against her back. His fingers trail from its hollow to circle the swell of her thigh, lazily. Her elbows almost give out as he dips a fleeting touch between her legs. She gasps: a little hitch, a word-sigh that sounds something like his name.

‘How do you want it?’ he asks.

‘Get on your back.’

It consumes her: this heat, this hunger for him. It always has. It always will. She cannot see shapes or shades when she is with him; the world is blurred at its edges, things lose their sharpness. But his fingertips skate her skin like pinpricks, and the lines of his face are strong and clean. Everything fades around them — everything except them.

‘Look at you.’

He puts his palm below her navel, between her hipbones, lets his thumb roll lower till he finds her clit. She lifts onto her knees a little at the contact, then sinks back onto his thighs. Her lip trembles between her teeth.

‘I want to put my mouth here,’ he says. ‘My tongue.’

‘Later,’ she breathes. ‘I need you inside me first.’

She is so wet that the roll of his thumb is slippery, inexact. Her body rises with its rhythm even so. Distantly, she wonders if she will come like this: his thumb, the dark glitter of his eyes dipping to sketch the line of her collarbone, the pale blush of her breasts in the dim moonlight.

He is looking at her like she is a piece of fine-art, a painted fruit-bowl hanging high on a gallery wall. For a moment, she feels coolly detached from him, from herself, too; from the version of Sansa they both are sharing in this dark bedroom amidst the starry hills. Silky globes, sticky centres — she is an arrangement, an assortment of such sweet things to be pored over by cold lenses, preened at and picked apart. Little else. Even to him.

Then his lips touch the bone between her breasts, and warmth blooms beneath her skin. He looks up at her as he kisses her there again. Her hands lift away from her throat; the strangled sound drifts from her tongue as she puts her palms to his head, levels his face, dips to find his mouth with her own.

‘Fuck me,’ she says.

 _Break me_ , she means. _Make me real_.

His hands skim down her sides; he nips his nails into her skin until she moans. A little bite of hurt, a little hint of strength. He latches fists onto her hips, lifts her. She sinks down — flush, full — and rolls her neck in the cradle his fingers make around it. His thumb beneath her jaw, the tips of his fingers pressing against the soft swell of her lower lip. She opens her mouth; tastes herself on his skin.

‘Like that?’

She rolls her tongue around his fingers. ‘Like that, Jon.’

‘I missed you,’ he says huskily. ‘Fuck — I want you on my face.’

‘Later. Please, Jon. Later.’

He gives a growl that ebbs out to a whimper when she puts her hand between her legs, then presses it — damp, sticky — to his lips. He licks her palm. She rocks her hips to the rhythm of his tongue flickering at the bases of her fingers. Drags her hand away from his mouth, slips it down to rest against the plump muscles of his chest.

It builds quickly. He shifts his hips, circles a little lower — and there is a string along her spine, pulling her taut. Her thighs convulse; his hands cup them, soothing, warm. She folds forward, collapses against his chest as her hips keep rolling: soft, soft. There is nothing distant about him when he looks into her eyes, comes inside her with her name on his lips.

Afterward, they lie tangled up for a little while. There is salt on her skin, smoke in her lungs. A prop cigarette passed between them; click of claws on the hardwood floors outside the bedroom as the dogs wander, collapse, curl up together.

She puts her chin onto his chest, looks up at him through her lashes. His face is softer now, the hard lines blurred at their very edges. Creases gone from the corners of his eyes. A single strand of silver above his left ear, streaking back into the bun at the back of his head. She touches it, follows its path with a fingertip.

‘I told Robb about us.’

He shifts the cigarette to the corner of his mouth. ‘What?’

‘Robb,’ she says. ‘I told him.’

‘What did he say?’

She wrinkles her nose. ‘That you’re too old for me.’

‘He’s no spring chicken.’

They smile at that. She watches him take the cigarette from his lips, feels the muscles in his side stretch against her as he leans to put it out in the ashtray beside the bed. He rolls back, puts his fingertip to her chin. Gives a little frown, keeps his smile.

‘Why did you tell him?’

‘I don’t want this to be a secret anymore.’

His frown deepens. ‘Not everything needs a label. That’s what you told me.’

‘What if I want a label now?’ she asks. ‘Would you let me have it? Would you give me it?’

His frown clears instantly. ‘I’d give you the world, Sansa. You know that.’

‘I don’t want the world,’ she murmurs. ‘Just a little label.’

‘A label,’ he says. ‘A little label.’

‘Yes.’

‘A little label,’ he whispers. ‘I can do that. Mm — we can do that.’

His voice is light, sweet; it carries her along on its thread. She feels like she is dancing, spinning on the grass in the gardens with the daisies blooming beneath her bare feet. He tips his head a little to the side now, lets her press her lips into the crook of it. She breathes in the scent of his aftershave, woody and warm on his skin.

‘Sleep,’ he says softly. ‘You’ve work tomorrow.’

Sansa nods, lulled halfway to sleep already by the stirring of his hand across her hair.

Late sunlight catches at the tall trees that line her dreams. She tilts her eyes to follow it: this haze that her days here pass beneath. A moon-glint somewhere amongst the heat and the spotlights, the palm trees and shady corners. Him.

Jon.

(Hers, and hers alone.)

* * *


End file.
